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Upper-Intermediate

Tightening Their Belts
China's office workers are tightening their belts, cutting back spending on everything from clothes to fast food, despite government efforts to boost consumption to stave off the worst effects of a global recession. Wang Hao, a 24-year-old Beijing office worker, has launched a campaign to curb weekly living expenses to 100 yuan ($14.60). (People and a global recession, China, shopping and habits, present continuous.) Upper-Intermediate

Try wrapping this!
Our annual look at the Neiman Marcus fantasy Christmas catalog. The 90th edition of this legendary book continues the Neiman Marcus tradition of offering its customers a selection of spectacular and unique holiday gifts sure to make even their wildest dreams come true. (Christmas, very expensive gifts, role play, vocabulary work, summarizing.)Upper-Intermediate

Education - Max Vocabulary Worksheet
An upper-intermediate vocabulary worksheet looking at types of education and schooling, people in education, exam and study words and education terms.Upper-Intermediate

Camels
This lesson was suggested by Raewyn Diggerman of Queensland, Australia who won our 'Most Wanted Resource Competition' in which contestants suggested an idea for a resource they wanted written.Upper-Intermediate

Trim the grocery bill, not nutrition
Food prices, fuel costs and economic fears are growing, but that doesn't mean you can't eat healthfully while on a recession diet. Feeding yourself and your family on a budget can still include nutritious lean protein, fruits and vegetables in your diet every day... It just requires an open mind and a bit of extra time. (Nutrition, health, shopping and cooking, must/ must not/ should/ should not/ have to.)Upper-Intermediate

Top International Travel Destinations
The Greek island of Rhodes was voted on Thursday as the top European location in a survey of the world's 100 best travel destinations. New Zealand topped the international survey. (Best travel destinations, geography, tourism, travel questionnaire, reading for numbers and facts, explaining a headline.)Upper-Intermediate

A Model Citizen
Paris Hilton, the celebrity and hotel heiress who spent a stint in jail last year, said on Thursday she sees herself as a role model for young women as she prepared to judge a contest to crown Miss Turkey. (Movie stars, notoriety, role models, skimming and scanning, writing and conducting an interview, crossword.)Upper-Intermediate

Beijing Driving Guide
Here are some tips about how to drive in Beijing, a city with three million vehicles on its roads. (Driving, road safety, Beijing, filling gaps, matching sentence halves, pairwork reading, discussion, language focus on the definite article.)Upper-Intermediate

Web Doctor
Dr. Howard Stark's office is quiet. Very quiet. No patients sit in his waiting room. Stark has moved most of his practice, based in Washington, onto the Internet and he couldn't be happier. (Doctors, the Internet, online study, medical vocabulary, finding information, finding advantages and disadvantages, may/might, might not to express possibility) Upper-Intermediate

Copy Cat College Students
More than half of teachers in a British survey said they thought plagiarism from the Internet is a problem.(College students and lecturers, making excuses, comprehension, true, false and not given, role play, writing a letter to excuse yourself, prepositions.)Upper-Intermediate

Hungry Pandas
Giant pandas living in the wild in the misty mountains of southwest China are facing a possible food shortage as bamboo plants, their staple diet, near the end of their lifespan, state media said on Monday. (Pandas, conservation, brainstorming, listening gap fill, sequencing, conducting an interview, verbs of perception with active participles or bare infinitives).Upper-Intermediate

Halloween
Kmart Corp has been sued by a company that accused the retailer of ripping off its full-body banana costume design. Halloween is big business. U.S. shoppers are expected to spend $3.4 billion on costumes alone for the Oct. 31 holiday (Halloween, consumer spending, fancy dress costumes.)Upper-Intermediate

Space for Rent
"Galactic Suite", the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes. If you've had enough of life on earth and want to get away from it all, start saving now. (Tourism, space, the future perfect)
Upper-Intermediate

Training Camp
Sweating, panting and some groaning, 400 Japanese worked out on Sunday with US fitness guru Billy Blanks, whose military-style exercises have become a huge hit in a country where waistlines are bulging. (Keeping fit, business ideas, conducting a survey.)Upper-Intermediate

Robin Hood Lives!
Robin Hood lives! People taking part in a game designed to explore egalitarian impulses in human nature consistently robbed from players assigned the most money while giving money to those with the least, scientists said on Wednesday. (Honesty and equality in society, Robin Hood, finding synonyms, reading for correct information, answering true or false questions, Internet research, expressing opinions.) Upper-Intermediate

Lost in The Big Apple
Ever wondered what would happen if you lost your wallet in a big city? If it happened in New York, chances are you would get it back. New Yorkers may have a reputation as being busy, cynical and tough but most will take the trouble and effort to find the owner of a lost wallet, according to a new study. (Honesty, city versus countryside, problem solving, writing a definition, conducting an experiment, quantifier words.)Upper-Intermediate

Water Crisis
Fleets of supertankers could one day ply the world's oceans laden not with oil but fresh water. The world's top climate scientists have issued the strongest warning yet that human activity was heating the planet. By 2100, water scarcity could impact between 1.1 and 3.2 billion people. (Water conservation, predicting from a headline, completing a table, interpreting, survey on water use, completing a poster slogan, finding grammatical errors.)Upper-Intermediate Lesson Updated: 9 February 2007

Max Vocab Worksheet: The United Nations
Here are a couple of exercises on words related to the United Nations and the Security Council. This worksheet goes well with the Upper Intermediate lesson "The Security Council".Upper-Intermediate

Safer Cars For Pedestrians
Safety stickers required on new cars in 2007, energy-absorbing bumpers, pop-up engine covers and windshield air bags could soon be added, child-safety seat restraints for children much safer than ordinary seat belts in crashes. (Safety features for cars and pedestrian fatalities, jigsaw reading, zero, definite and indefinite articles, listening and gap fill.)Upper-Intermediate

Move Your Body Game
This warmer reviews the meanings of different movement verbs and parts of the body.Upper-Intermediate

Dignity in Dying
The House of Lords blocked a controversial law today to allow doctors to help terminally ill patients end their lives. (Euthanasia, quality of life, the UK, laws, relative clauses.) Upper-Intermediate

Disappearing Fish
The world's fish and seafood populations will collapse by 2048 if current trends in habitat destruction and overfishing continue, resulting
in less food for humans. In Japan fish is a cherished delicacy. Two articles that look at overfishing and the popularity of fish in Japan. (Depletion of fish stocks, conservation, eating seafood, survey, scanning, true or false, prepositions, brainstorming, first conditional.)Upper-Intermediate

Anna Grammar Worksheet - Relative Clauses
A relative clause combines two sentences, the second sentence describing a noun in the first sentence. This worksheet has explanations, examples and exercises for your students.Upper-Intermediate

Gone to the Dogs
Yappy hours for dogs, dog perfumes and dog parties. Cottages with lounge beds, color TV and VCRs for dogs on holiday. Find out about the booming pets' products industry: in 2006 about $7 billion will be spent on dogs. (Dogs, dog merchandise and luxury holidays, verb patterns: verbs that take an object and a to-infinitive, discussion, selling a product.)Upper-Intermediate

Lightning Safety
Seeking refuge in houses, schools or office buildings, unplugging computers and avoiding open fields during thunderstorms can help reduce the number of injuries and deaths caused by lightning during the summer months. Never use a mobile phone outside during a lightning strike. (Lightning, safety during thunderstorms, scanning, expressions using lightning, verb patterns.)Upper-Intermediate Lesson Updated: 20 October 2006

Head Room for Cyclists
Motorists give greater leeway to cyclists who do not wear safety helmets, according to a study by a academic in Britain who was hit by traffic twice as he rode his bike to carry out his research. (Bicycles, traffic safety, completing a summary, categorizing words, comprehension, articles - definite and indefinite)Upper-Intermediate

Make a Choice: Transport
This warmer gives students speaking practice and helps them develop fluency in speaking on a topic.Upper-Intermediate

Living English - Course
Living English - Course - Upper Intermediate
English-to-go resources for Upper Intermediate students. Units 1 to 8 are ready now, Units 9 to 12 will be ready soon.
This course guide helps you use a range of gold member resources and tells you what skills and language points each has. Use the 'Search' functions on the site to find the resources.
We welcome your feedback and hope you enjoy using our new Living English course.Upper-Intermediate

The Fat Jab
A vaccine that slows down a key hunger hormone kept rats from gaining weight, even when they overate. (Obesity, dieting, comprehension, matching words and meanings, completing a diagram, completing a food pyramid, quantifiers and uncountable nouns.)Upper-Intermediate

Super Appliances
Flat TVs and Internet fridges - some of the appliances available to consumers: what they offer and how popular they are. (Technology, domestic appliances, scanning, reading and checking information, making notes, persuading someone to buy a product, past simple, present perfect simple and present simple tenses, writing an advertisement.)Upper-Intermediate Lesson Updated: 29 August 2006

Battling the Ban
New York may be a city of incessant cell phone talkers, but students vowed on Wednesday they would hit the "off" button during classes as they battled a ban on cell phones in schools. (Using cell phones, high schools, true or false, brainstorming, completing a table of information, discussing pros and cons, using present simple, present continuous and will/won't to describe present habits.)Upper-Intermediate

Anna Grammar Worksheet - Modal Auxiliary VerbsCan, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might and must are all modal auxiliary verbs.
This worksheet will show students how modal verbs are used in different ways. Upper-Intermediate

The Answer Lies Online
Nearly half of U.S. users of the Internet went online for help with major life decisions such as finding a college for their child or looking for a new place to live. (Life decisions, Internet use, complete the table, choose the best summary, true, false or not given, language - proof reading, peer editing, writing an essay)Upper-Intermediate

How much is your love?
Love comes at a hefty price in South Korea. There are up to 21 anniversaries, special days and celebrations a year for couples to shower each other with affection and gifts, and as a result some relationships are crushed under the weight of festivities. (Festivals and special days, romance, South Korea, discussion, matching information, comprehension, present simple tense - uses.)Upper-Intermediate

Anna Grammar Worksheet - Future Perfect (UpInt)
The Future Perfect expresses an action that will be completed before a certain time in the future. This worksheet gives you practice with this form at the Upper-Intermediate level.Upper-Intermediate

Believing the Web
More than 70 percent of adults aged 50 or older use some type of alternative medicine, such as herbal medicine, meditation, or seeing a chiropractor, according to new study findings. New strategies are needed to help assure the quality of information on the Internet; not all information is true. (Alternatives to conventional medicine, health information on the Internet, comprehension, finding information, giving an opinion, word search, should, shouldn't, have to, doesn't have to, had to.)Upper-Intermediate

Anna Grammar Worksheet - Quantifiers (UpInt)
Quantifiers (quantity words) are words that describe different amounts of things i.e a lot of, lots of, some, any, few, a few, a little, little, many and much. This worksheet has some rules and some practice for Upper-Intermediate students.Upper-Intermediate

Madagascar
Madagascar, which lies off the eastern coast of Africa and is home to thousands of species of animals found nowhere else on earth, has been severely damaged by a cyclone. (Madagascar, the environment, cyclones, disasters, Present Simple or Present Perfect Simple, used to or am used to.)
Upper-Intermediate

Keeping the river flowing
The Jordan River is heavily polluted with sewage and is in danger of drying up after decades of conflict and intense agricultural use, environmentalists say. (Environment, agriculture, natural resources, religions, the Middle East, rivers, answering true or false questions, comprehension, cloze reading, reported speech, direct speech, team quiz.)Upper-Intermediate

Ethical Education
An Indian teenager fooled governments, the media and even the president into believing he had topped the world in a NASA science exam. Canadian university students cheated on an ethics course. (Dishonesty, plagiarizing, examinations, understanding the main idea, answering true, false or not given questions, describing past habits and routines, writing a questionnaire.)Upper-Intermediate

Internet Exchange
For unwanted gifts from this holiday season, web bazaars like eBay have made the Great Gift Swap more popular than ever. (Gift giving, customs, What Would You Do? quiz - gifts, white lies, predicting from the headline, guessing meanings from context, scanning, true or false, Choose The Right Gift Game, jigsaw reading game, present perfect simple and present simple tenses.)Upper-Intermediate

"Hello, is that Travel Dot Com?"
Online travel booking was meant to save businesses money, and make the whole process easy and painless. However, some problems have emerged, and business people are again reaching for the phone to make travel arrangements the old-fashioned way. (Business travel, online business, discussion, travel vocabulary, finding the main idea, sequencing, ranking and listing activity, Internet research.)Upper-Intermediate